


The Long and The Short of It

by musical_emjay



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 18:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musical_emjay/pseuds/musical_emjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An on-going collection of short (and not so short) stories, as the title suggests, based on solicited prompts. </p><p>Fair warning: the extent to which I follow or deviate from these prompts will be...variable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long and The Short of It

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt: _Cop/agent/whatever Lehnsherr having to babysit witness!Charles. Age-disparity is forever a bonus. So is dirty sex. Preferably with Charles being filthy little minx._
> 
> Plot-twist: not so much with the dirty sex in this one. I know, I'm just as surprised as you are.

It’s been an hour since Lehnsherr left.

If Charles were the type of person given to panic, he might be doing just that at this very moment.

But of course he isn’t that type of person at all -- or so he’s always taken great pains to have others believe. He’d made a point of it, their first night together in this depressing little rathole of an apartment, to make sure Agent Lehnsherr understood that his assistance was in no way wanted or required. Charles had the situation firmly in hand. He wasn’t about to run and hide now that he’d said his piece and sent a criminal to jail for the rest of his miserable waste of a life. He wasn’t afraid of retribution.

Lehnsherr, however, gave no impression whatsoever that he believed Charles’ adamant claims, or that he particularly cared one way or another. He had a job to do, or so he’d said -- in that deep, distractingly pleasant voice of his -- and if Charles made any attempts to leave the safe-house he would soon find himself hogtied on the bed, for as long as Lehnsherr needed him to remain there.

With his emotions running as high as they were in that moment, Charles certainly couldn’t be blamed for tossing Lehnsherr an indolent smirk in reply to the very blatant threat. “If you want to tie me down all you have to do is ask, darling.”

He couldn’t help himself, honestly.

To no one’s surprise Lehnsherr didn’t appear to approve of innuendo, or jokes as a whole. That first barb, and all of Charles’ subsequent efforts to lift the dour mood of his jailer were met with a pained grimace and pointed silence. Charles despaired -- there were only so many times he could read through his one and only book before feeling the need to throw it petulantly against the wall.

Now, though, now -- Charles is getting very close to admitting that he would much prefer Lehnsherr’s particular brand of silence over _this_. It’s not like Lehnsherr to be away so long, to be gone _at all_. The one and only time Lehnsherr left him alone lasted a grand total of three and a half minutes, and even then it’d looked like he would rather break his own fingers than let Charles out of his sight. Waking up initially without Lehnsherr’s brooding presence hovering nearby was unsettling for a whole host of reasons, but now that Charles has spent a full hour sitting on his cot, gaze fixed on the door, what was once discomfort has now shifted to the first itchy pricklings of genuine fear.

And to think, the week was once shaping up to be a pretty good one. On Monday he’d gone to his favourite second-hand bookstore and come away with a generous handful of rare treasures. On Wednesday he’d gotten a rather spectacular blowjob from the groundskeeper’s son -- home from college on semester break. His birthday was that weekend in point of fact, his twentieth, and he’d had vague plans to go into the city and get royally pissed with Moira, find himself a pretty face to follow home and fuck till dawn.

And then Kurt had to go and execute one of his goons in the drawing room, painting the parquet floor red and white with blood and bits of bone, and Charles had been forced to concede that enough was enough. He was tired of looking the other way, tired of trying to protect his mother from her own poor decisions. His conscience, though a little tarnished, could no longer tolerate it.

Which meant that Kurt was now in jail with several of his loyal henchmen (though not _all_ , that was key), and Cain was in the wind -- on the warpath and gunning for Charles, supposedly, if what the FBI believed was true. Regardless, Charles is _here_ , waiting out the initial blowback until he can be squirrelled away into witness protection no doubt, and for once Lehnsherr _is not_.

Almost as soon as he thinks it there’s the rattle of a key in the lock, the door handle turning quickly after. Charles doesn’t even have time to dive under the cot, or run for the bathroom, before someone stumbles through the door -- all Charles can see is blood, blood _everywhere_ \--

And then Charles realizes it’s Lehnsherr.

“ _Christ_ ,” he hisses, his heart stopping completely before beginning to beat double-time.

Lehnsherr barely makes it through the doorway, but Charles is there to catch him when his knees buckle, tumbling into Charles’ arms like a sack of wet cement. How on earth a man as frighteningly thin as Lehnsherr can be so heavy Charles doesn’t know, and he’s only just able to keep them both relatively upright.

They shuffle and lurch across the floor, not helped in the least by Lehnsherr’s repeated attempts to pull himself free of their awkward half-embrace, hands clutching clumsily at various parts of Charles’ body like he needs to reassure himself Charles is really there.

“Are you okay?” Lehnsherr asks, and his voice is thick, wet, like there’s something crowding his throat.

Charles pulls him down onto the cot just in time, his own legs suddenly going rubbery and weak.

“What a fucking absurd question,” he snaps, trying very hard to sound calm and assertive, for all that he feels anything but. “Yes of course I’m okay. _I’m_ not the one bleeding all over the sheets, you maniac.”

Lehnsherr doesn’t look convinced, eyes roving over every inch of bare skin available to him, fingers twitching like he wants to peel back all of Charles’ layers just to make sure. Charles can’t help but be a little bitter about it -- if only Lehnsherr had looked at him like that _yesterday_ , before this whole mess. Now Lehnsherr is _dying_ and it's all Charles’ _fault_ \--

“You need to lie down,” Charles says, despite the fact that he cannot confirm either way the veracity of such a statement. It just seems like the thing to do.

Lehnsherr resists Charles’ prodding though, grabbing both his wrists when Charles refuses to quit.

“None of the blood is mine,” he says, and only then does Charles fully realize how close they’re sitting. He can feel the rumble when Lehnsherr speaks, the heat of his breath on Charles’ cheek. A tell-tale blush blooms to life before he can even think to stop it, stomach clenching in grossly ill-timed anticipation.

So Charles deflects. “I do hope that’s not meant to be reassuring,” he says.

Lehnsherr just shrugs, his face an impassive mask, and Charles makes a rude noise of exasperation, tugging his wrists free. “Whose blood _is_ it then? And why can’t you walk?” His breath is starting to come faster again, shallow little wheezes that he can’t seem to control. “Better yet, what _happened_?”

Predictably, Lehnsherr answers with silence. He puts some space between them and starts shucking his ruined clothes without seeming to care that Charles is _still right there for god’s sake_. Charles doesn’t even pretend not to watch, riveted as each blood-soaked item is removed one after another till Lehnsherr is bare from the waist up. He looks like he’s been thrashed to within an inch of his life, his chest and back a patchwork of bruises just beginning to show.

Half of Charles’ attention gets hung up on that awful detail, needing more than ever to know how his life could possibly be so important that Lehnsherr would take a beating like this to protect him.

The other half wants to put his mouth where it emphatically does not belong when taking into account their current circumstances, because even in a crisis Charles is nothing if not completely himself.

Lehnsherr remains oblivious, whether by accident or by design Charles can’t tell. He’s grateful regardless.

There’s a brief moment where Lehnsherr looks as if he might be trying to work up the nerve to stand, but Charles cuts him off at the pass.”Stay right where you are.”

“I need my phone,” Lehnsherr says. He gestures towards his bag on the table across the room. “I need to check in, let my superiors know you’re all right.”

“What you need is a hospital.” Charles pushes him down and goes to get the phone himself, flips it open and starts scanning through the contacts. “Who is it I’m looking for?”

Lehnsherr reaches out and makes an impatient come-hither motion. “No one. Give it here.”

Charles relinquishes the phone with a scowl, quietly seething as Lehnsherr makes his all-important call. As if to add insult to injury, Charles is then forced to listen to Lehnsherr’s side of the ensuing conversation, which consists of nothing more than a few terse, one word answers that tell Charles absolutely nothing of use.

It’s therefore a bit of a nasty shock when Lehnsherr ends the call and then says in his usual blunt growl, “Cain Marko is dead.”

Charles stares back at him. Very abruptly he needs to sit down.

“I suppose that’s his blood you’re soaked in,” he says, but the answer’s already written in red across Lehnsherr’s face.

“It is.”

A small, cold stone settles in the pit of his stomach, heavy with some terrible emotion that might just be relief. He’s never wished Cain dead, but now that it’s happened Charles can’t quite bring himself to regret it, as much as it tears at him to consider.

“Someone tipped him off; he was coming here to kill you,” Lehnsherr continues. For a second he sounds angry, almost furious. A nudge to his professional pride, maybe -- the gall of anyone to think they could kill someone under his care. Charles has no idea, really. Lehnsherr’s emotions, or lack thereof, are the stuff of smoke and mystery. This man is still a virtual stranger to him, no matter how much Charles might wish otherwise.

“So what happened?” Charles prompts, searching out Lehnsherr’s gaze and holding it.

Lehnsherr looks away, rubs one hand over his face before scruffing it back through his short-cropped hair, heaving a great sigh.

“He threw me down the stairs,” he says softly, like it’s being dragged out of him. Like he’s embarrassed.

Charles gapes. “What, the stairs here? I didn’t hear a thing!”

“In case it’s slipped your notice, this apartment is heavily soundproofed. You aren’t meant to hear anything, nor is anyone meant to hear us.”

“That seems remarkably ill-advised,” Charles says, a slightly hysterical laugh sitting at the back of his throat. “How did you even know Cain was coming? How could you have?”

Lehnsherr eases his left leg out in front of him gingerly, mouth pinching, before choosing to reply. “We have people watching every angle of this building. One of them saw Cain coming, texted me a warning.” He pauses, rubs his faintly ginger-shadowed jaw. “I was meant to deal with him quietly, on my own, without drawing attention.”

From the looks of Lehnsherr now, Charles can imagine that things did not go according to plan. Cain was always good at that, blundering into situations and mucking up the works like a particularly belligerent bull in a china shop, seeking out the most delicate items to obliterate first.

“He ambushed me in the stairwell,” Lehnsherr continues, that thread of embarrassment still running thick through every word. “Lucky for us both he felt the need to finish me off first, or else he would’ve gone straight for you.”

“Sounds like Cain,” Charles mutters darkly, and Lehnsherr’s face cracks in an awful, humourless grin.

“He also had a knife instead of a gun --”

“Oh, that’s Cain all over. Knives are personal. He likes that.”

The fact that Charles knows this, has known it for years, makes his stomach turn. He suddenly can’t fathom why he waited so long, why he decided now was the time to speak up when there were so many other, more terrible deaths behind him gone unremarked upon, unacknowledged. There must have been, even if they never happened where he could see.

Charles realizes all at once that he can’t quite breathe. He stumbles over to the foggy window and throws the casement open with trembling hands, unprepared for the wave of noise that comes rushing in, the world once again made real. Gasping, he clutches at the sill and bends nearly in half between his arms, trying to calm the frantic thundering of his heart.

Behind him the cot groans and screeches as Lehnsherr struggles to stand. “Breathe, Xavier,” he barks, sounding a little frantic, and something about the command is exactly what Charles needs to pull himself together

“Don’t get up,” he pleads in a thready, choking voice, both eyes squeezed shut. “I’m fine. I just -- I’m fine.”

The next few moments go by in a haze, Charles taking slow, shaky sips of air, holding and then releasing. In small increments his chest begins to ease, feeling less and less like something’s been jammed down his throat, like he’s about to squirm out of his fucking skin. Through it all Lehnsherr’s gaze is a firebrand, a scorching, white hot point of regard -- and yet strangely comforting regardless. No one’s ever looked at Charles like that before, no one’s ever cared that much. He’s not quite sure what to do with that knowledge.

“How did Cain die?” he asks eventually, desperate to get them back on track, away from this aberration of emotion, this lack of control. He turns around again and leans back against the window sill, pretending he doesn’t need its support, not at all like the way he did when clutching at it only seconds before.

To his relief Lehnsherr obliges him, just not in the way he was expecting.

“The way all men tend to die when it comes down to it,” he says, and his eyes are like two sharp chips of ice, transparent and cold. “Struggling. Angry. In pain.”

Charles stares, and experiences a queer shudder of revulsion, sweeping over him from head to toe. There’s something profoundly unsettling in the way Lehnsherr speaks, the primal, savage satisfaction lurking underneath those few clipped words.

With the amount of blood Lehnsherr’s drenched in, Charles can all too easily imagine just how much pain Cain was in, what kind of wound would merit such excessive gore. He had a knife, Lehnsherr said. Perhaps now he’s got a red sickle smile for his trouble.

“Have you ever killed someone before?” Charles asks faintly, bracing himself, not sure which answer he’s hoping to hear.

But Lehnsherr doesn’t even hesitate, nods once. Charles’ mouth goes wet, saliva thick on his tongue like he’s about to be sick..

“Are you really an FBI agent?” he asks. “Hiltin and Gregson are, of course, they’ve come sniffing around the house before -- but you? It seems like the first thing I should’ve asked, when they chivvied us in here together. Too distracted by your pretty face, I imagine.”

Charles’ smile is brittle, wavering on his face. Lehnsherr has gone still as stone, watchful.

“I’m a consultant,” he says, and the way he says _consultant_ makes Charles’ skin prickle with animal fear. “Someone not opposed to taking things to their natural conclusion. When deserved.”

He picks his words so carefully, so diplomatically, that Charles almost doesn’t understand what he’s saying at first. Lehnsherr couldn’t _possibly_ be implying -- why even bother with Charles if he --?

“Christ,” Charles blurts in a hoarse whisper of disbelief. “I’m bloody _bait_ , aren’t I?”

There’s a long beat of startled silence. Charles might as well have fired a gun, suddenly faced with a horrid vacuum of dead air.

Lehnsherr’s jaw tics. “Not...deliberately.”

“But if it should happen that way all the better, I suppose?”

Lehnsherr makes a vague, non committal sound, and Charles just wants to _laugh_. How could he possibly have been so naive as to think that speaking up would stop this? The Markos are cop-killers; of course the powers-that-be would find a way to mete out their own brand of justice. Charles just happened to be useful collateral, an excuse to put their chips in play. To call in their -- hit man, or whatever vague designation Lehnsherr had likely been given to maintain the thin veneer of due process.

And to think, only a few hours ago Charles was idly entertaining thoughts of seduction, something fun to pass the time. Now...well, Charles is sure he’s never been less aroused in his entire life.

“So what happens now?” he asks. Lehnsherr’s eyes track him as Charles begins to pace, carding a hand through his greasy hair again and again because he just can’t seem to stop.

“Now you go into proper witness protection,” Lehnsherr says. “The FBI wanted Cain. The rest of the lackeys and lieutenants will be rounded up eventually, but there’s no particular hurry.”

Charles laughs. He’s surprised it doesn’t sound as hysterical as he feels. “Oh, goody. Who’s my new minder going to be? I assume you’re pissing off now that the job is done.”

Except Lehnsherr doesn’t give another one of his oh-so-eloquent grunts of agreement. Instead he shakes his head, expression gone somber and slightly guilty.

“No, I’ll be with you until we deem you’re safe.”

Charles smiles slowly. “Until I’m no longer of use, you mean.”

“Whatever you choose to believe, Xavier.” Lehnsherr sounds tired, like his aches and pains are starting to register, his patience wearing thin. Charles is faintly surprised by the small smoky curl of satisfaction he feels at recognizing this.

He also recognizes how unfair it is to tar Lehnsherr with the same brush as his superiors when he’s really nothing more than a blunt instrument, but Charles is feeling somewhat less than charitable at the moment. He needs somewhere to focus his anger and outrage, and Lehnsherr is as good a target as any.

Nothing more is said for some time. After several long, interminable minutes of strained silence Lehnsherr heaves himself to his feet and hobbles into the bathroom, presumably to shower off the blood. Charles takes the opportunity to strip the cot of its now soiled sheets before stealing a pillow and retreating to the sagging loveseat where Lehnsherr has been keeping his sleepless vigil for the last two days. Frankly, Charles has no desire to be anywhere near the grisly remnants of his step-brother, and Lehnsherr will likely appreciate the space to stretch out and nurse his wounds if they’re going to be staying much longer.

Perhaps his reserves of charity are more robust than he initially thought.

Though he doesn’t intend to Charles falls into a light, restless doze, his mind still whirling too fast for anything deeper, anything actually _restful_. He jerks awake again when Lehnsherr emerges from the bathroom in nothing but a tightly wrapped, slightly ragged white towel. Charles wishes he could appreciate the sight, but he still feels shaken and queasy with his new burden of knowledge. Lust is the last thing on his mind.

There are still so many questions he needs to ask, things that don’t add up. Like the way Lehnsherr had looked at him when he’d first returned to the apartment, that expression on his face that went beyond concern for the safety of a valuable commodity. Like he truly cared, like he’d murdered Cain in cold-blood for Charles’ _benefit_ , not just because he’d been ordered to.

A hitman with a heart of tarnished gold -- Charles has seen stranger things, certainly, but nothing quite like this

_I didn’t want this_ , he thinks, bitterly. _I didn’t ask for this. Cain should be in **jail**_.

Charles watches as Lehnsherr dresses with speed, an enviable economy of motion to how he pulls himself together. It’s more than a little mesmerizing, and his stomach lurches when Lehnsherr suddenly turns and gives Charles an impatient look. “We’re leaving for the new safehouse in ten minutes, whether you’re ready to go or not.”

Charles raises a skeptical brow. “If it were really as urgent as all that, you wouldn’t have stopped to take a bloody shower, now would you? We’d be gone already.”

“It’s not urgent,” Lehnsherr says simply. “I like to keep good time, and traffic is going to be a nightmare if we wait any longer.”

Charles gapes a little, but only momentarily. “How...practical.”

Lehnsherr nods dismissively and starts to throw things into his bag, stumping around the room in a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the severity of his own injury. He keeps his expression remarkably blank, but Charles can still spot the tiny grimaces of pain he doesn’t quite conceal completely.

“Can you even drive like that?” Charles asks, the thought only just occurring to him.

“My right leg is perfectly fine,” Lehnsherr replies. “Barring massive head trauma I can always find a way to drive if I need to.”

“Well lets try and avoid that.”

Lehnsherr’s mouth quirks just the tiniest bit, but the moment is ruined when he rips the pillow out from under Charles’ head without so much as a second’s warning. “Let’s go,” he says, his tone brooking no argument. Charles scowls but nonetheless complies, because for once he’s too emotionally exhausted to put up a proper fight.

He’s sure that a few hours from now he’ll get his second wind, be once again blindsided by the knowledge that Cain is dead and he was complicit in the murder, however distantly, but until then it just seems easier to follow along like a good boy.

(He’s good at that, pretending. It’s what has kept him safe all these years from Kurt -- maintaining the facade of a mindless society slut tended to keep Kurt’s interest focused elsewhere, never guessing that Charles could quite easily run the entire Marko empire with both hands tied behind his back had he even the remotest desire to do so. Which he doesn’t.)

Once they’re ready to go Lehnsherr leads them down to the main floor of the building and then out a back door into an alley strewn with refuse and other unmentionables. Charles takes it all in mutely, breathing through his mouth to escape the stench. There’s a small, nondescript sedan waiting just near the mouth of the alley, and they both get in without a word exchanged between them.

It’s only once they’re safely ensconced in the cold interior that Charles notices the strobing flash of red and blue light, reflecting off the storefront windows across the street. He can’t see anything from this angle, but it doesn’t take much to infer the reason for their presence.

“Clean up crew, I take it?” Charles says, but Lehnsherr just stares silently through the windshield, his face sharp and still as stone.

Charles takes a different tack. “How does this work, exactly?”

“How does what work?” Lehnsherr asks, sounding absent, like he’s only half paying attention.

“The whole ‘there’s a conspicuous dead body to deal and the man responsible is nowhere to be found’ thing,” Charles says, craning his neck a little to try and see around the corner of the building. “Surely under normal procedure there would be some kind of immediate action, a debriefing, at the very least a trip to the hospital?”

Lehnsherr’s mouth pinches. He sighs through his nose and then looks at Charles askance.

“One of the other agents will take responsibility,” he says. “I was never here.”

Charles lets that sink in, rubs at both eyes with the heel of each palm. “Who the hell are you?” he gasps, half-laughing with incredulity. “Bloody James Bond or something?”

“Or something,” Lehnsherr replies neutrally, still eyeing the street ahead of them. Charles wonders what he’s waiting for.

“Well, double-oh-seven, shall we away?” he asks, adds a mocking, impatient lilt to the question.

Lehnsherr’s answer is the engine roaring to life, his hand light and sure on the stick-shift as they pull out of the alley at a perfectly nonchalant pace. “Put on your seat belt.”

Charles obeys, but grudgingly. It would be the absolute height of irony to perish in a car accident after all this -- though part of Charles can’t help but hope for that eventuality, if only to spite the men pulling Lehnsherr’s strings. Their pace through the city remains sedate, however. No tail to shake, no timeline to keep. As Lehnsherr predicted the traffic begins to swell around them as they progress, though they seem to avoid the worst of it, keeping just ahead of the early-morning rush.

Before long they’re leaving the city entirely, and it’s then that Charles finally speaks up, no longer able to keep silent.

“Am I allowed to know where we’re going?” he asks softly, watching the scenery pass by through the passenger side window, a blur of blue-grey twilight. From the corner of his eye, he sees Lehnsherr shake his head.

“No,” he says. “Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon.”

“I’m not worried,” Charles insists, but it sounds weak and unconvincing to his own ears. He doesn’t like being kept out of the loop like this, at the mercy of someone else’s machinations. He doesn’t like to be told to sit back and accept, to have other people assure him they know what’s best. Charles knows what’s best. Ninety percent of the time he’s the smartest person in a given room; just because he’s never learned how to fire a gun or kill a man with his bare hands doesn’t mean he’s incapable of protecting himself.

Lehnsherr’s presence seemed excessive, at first, a mildly inopportune nuisance. Knowing what he does now, knowing it has nothing to do with protection, is galling.

“How long am I expected to endure this...captivity?” he asks, and Lehnsherr’s hands clench around the steering wheel before slowly releasing.

“Until Marko’s men are all accounted for,” he says solemnly.

Charles takes that in, feels his stomach twist and churn. A moment later, Lehnsherr turns to look at him, just for a moment, his gaze uncomfortably direct.

“Or until I run out of bullets, I suppose,” he adds. “Whichever comes first.”

Charles closes his eyes, turns his face away. After a long, drawn out moment he somehow manages to find his voice again.

“ _That_ ,” he says. “That is what worries me.”

Lehnsherr just drives, and says nothing in return.

 

 

||

end.


End file.
